| Peter Woodcock | |
|---|---|
Woodcock in 1957. |
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| Background information | |
| Born | March 5, 1939 Peterborough, Ontario, Canada |
| Died | March 5, 2010 (aged 71) Penetanguishene, Ontario, Canada |
| Killings | |
| Number of victims: | 4 known |
| Span of killings | 1956–1991 |
| Country | Canada |
| Date apprehended | 1957 |
David Michael Krueger (March 5, 1939 – March 5, 2010),[1] best known by his birth name, Peter Woodcock, was a Canadian serial killer and child rapist who gained notoriety for the brutal murders of three young children in Toronto, Canada in 1956 and 1957 when he himself was still a teenager. He was subsequently diagnosed as a psychopath and placed in a psychiatric facility.[2] Expensive treatment programs for Woodcock proved ineffective when he murdered a fellow psychiatric patient in 1991; after his death in 2010, he was dubbed by the Toronto Star as "The serial killer they couldn't cure".[1]
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Woodcock was born to a 17-year-old Peterborough factory worker who gave him up for adoption. He spent the first three years of his life in various foster homes; he was physically abused in at least one of those homes. He was later adopted by a wealthy family living near Yonge Street and Lawrence Avenue, who paid for a private school education, therapy and bikes for Woodcock. When he reached puberty, he began to travel around Toronto on his bike, fantasizing about becoming a gang leader and, in reality, sexually assaulting children in Parkdale and Cabbagetown. Ultimately, Woodcock would brutally murder three young children in 1956 and 1957.[1]
Woodcock was apprehended for the murders in 1957, found not guilty by reason of insanity, and placed in Oak Ridge, an Ontario psychiatric facility located in Penetanguishene.[1][2] There, he legally changed his name.[1] Following the completion of a treatment program for Woodcock and other psychopathic individuals, he was deemed greatly improved, and sent to a medium-security hospital in Brockville, Ontario in 1991. There, Woodcock claims, he fell in love with fellow psychiatric patient Dennis Kerr, who rejected his sexual advances.[2] During the first hour of his first weekend pass in 35 years, Woodcock stabbed Kerr to death. Woodcock was being supervised on the pass by Bruce Hamill, a former patient who had killed an elderly Ottawa woman in 1977. Hamill was an accomplice in the Brockville murder, and both men were subsequently returned to Oak Ridge.[1] Woodcock has told how the treatment program served only to make him more adept at manipulating others.[2] Having spent 53 years in custody, the majority of that time at Oak Ridge, Woodcock died there on March 5, 2010, his 71st birthday.[1]
Woodcock, billed as David Krueger, was prominently featured in the 2002 BBC documentary, Mind of a Murderer: Mask of Sanity.[2]